1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to digital content and related devices. More particularly, embodiments of the invention relate to the management of digital rights in digital content.
2. The Relevant Technology
Digital media is becoming ubiquitous in our society. Many people have access to digital content in one form or another. Not surprisingly, there are many different types of devices that can play the digital content. Personal audio players such as mp3 players, for example, can play digital audio content. Personal audio players enable media content to be loaded from a user's library as well as added to the library by purchasing audio content over the Internet.
One of the concerns with devices that can play digital content such as personal audio players relates to copyright concerns. In fact, the rights of a user, the owner, and the provider of digital content are a major concern.
One of the ways that these concerns are addressed is through the use of digital rights management (“DRM”), which generally refers to various schemes that are intended to control access to digital media such as digital audio or video. Digital rights management is not limited to copyright concerns however, and can be used by the provider of the content to impose restrictions in addition to normal copyright protections.
In sum, digital rights is an issue that is difficult to manage because content can be received from different types of sources, in different formats, and over different types of networks. The ability to manage the rights associated with the content in various contexts is currently not manageable with conventional DRM schemes.